Stories
Project artists Julie Ballands and Don Jenkins worked with Stories of the Stones group members to write these stories. They spent time digging around in the archives, tracking down cemetery workers’ families and speaking to regular dog walkers at St John’s, to create these story pages full of unearthed cemetery curios, reflections and tales.
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Resting Together: Cultural Funeral Rites in Elswick Cemeteries
Here, you can listen to interviews conducted by Project Artist, Julie Ballands, about different cultural beliefs regarding death rituals and funeral rites.
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The Jewish Burial Ground
The Jewish section of St John’s Cemetery was founded in 1856, just after the cemetery opened.
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Corsair
On the Elswick Road side of Westgate Hill Cemetery lies the grave of Corsair, an infant who died at the age of 8 months in 1845 far away from home, and whose short life connects Newcastle to the Ioway Native American tribe and a story of 19th century cultural tastes and exploitation.
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The Richardsons of the Gables
The Gables was a family home built in the mid 1870s. It was a grand building in Elswick on the corner of Gloucester Street and Elswick Road.
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Walls that Witnessed
While researching the buildings in St John’s (Elswick) Cemetery and some of the people buried there and at Westgate Hill, a story emerged about a set of buildings along Elswick Road.
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Thanks for the Libraries
Willliam Haswell Stephenson founded 2 libraries in Elswick and is buried at St John’s Cemetery.
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The Montagu Pit Disaster
On the 25th March 1925 miners at the Montagu View pit in Scotswood broke through into the old workings of the Paradise Pit and 38 men and boys died in the flood that followed.
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William Mitford
William Mitford was born in North Shields in 1788 and was a writer of popular Geordie folk songs.
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Chinese Sailors’ Graves
What thrall do these graves from the late nineteenth century hold for Chinese people in contemporary times, and why are they so well visited and so many offerings left on them?
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Private Ivy Everard
Volunteer Susan shares her research into Ivy Everard who served in World War Two and is buried at St John’s Cemetery.
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The Cycle of Life
For those seeking wellbeing, the cemeteries offer a unique environment where you can reconnect with nature away from the stress and noise of the inner city, and be reminded of the ongoing cycles of life and connections between all living things.
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A Menagerie of Animal Tales
As well as the many thousands of human stories St John’s Cemetery contains, research unearthed some stories and curios about animals too.
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Living Among the Dead
What was it like to live in the city but grow up behind the cemetery gates?
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